Gujarat Congress seeks vigilance probe into road projects

Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said that Rs 4,520 crore out of the annual budget of Rs 19,779 crore was spent by eight mahanagarpalikas under the control of the BJP on resurfacing and building of new roads.

Alleging corruption in resurfacing and construction of new roads in eight mahangarpalikas in the state, the Congress on Thursday demanded a vigilance probe to unearth the “racket’’ in the bodies. The eight mahanagarpalikas—under the control of the BJP— are Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar and Junagadh.

State Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said that Rs 4,520 crore out of the annual budget of Rs 19,779 crore was spent by these eight local bodies on resurfacing and building of new roads. “Yet, these roads were washed away in the first rains itself, exposing the poor quality of work and suggesting corruption in the whole system,” alleged Doshi.

He added the local bodies got their accounts audited by private agencies instead of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. “If the audit is done by the CAG, the whole corruption can be exposed,” said Doshi.

Legal notice to VMC standing committee

Congress corporator Ami Ravat served a legal notice to the chairman of standing committee of the VMC, demanding disapproval of an agenda of a meeting regarding awarding the contract for construction of housing schemes at four locations to Manav Infrastructure, which has run into controversies in the Sanjaynagar redevelopment scheme.